The testes produce the male sex hormone

When scientists first discovered these fish, they kept wondering why all the fish they captured where females. However, after some time they noticed small “growths” on the females skin that, upon closer inspection, turned out to be males (see image below). The tiny males actually only live to find a female. Upon encounter, a male bites into her skin after which the tissues of the male and female become completely fused together so that their blood vessels join as one. The male now assured of a life without the need to hunt for food degenerates his eyes and all internal organs except for its testes.

2) Irreversible adaptation to sperm competition . It has been suggested that the ancestor of the boreoeutherian mammals was a small mammal that required very large testes (perhaps rather like those of a hamster ) for sperm competition and thus had to place its testes outside the body. [43] This led to enzymes involved in spermatogenesis, spermatogenic DNA polymerase beta and recombinase activities evolving a unique temperature optimum, slightly less than core body temperature. When the boreoeutherian mammals then diversified into forms that were larger and/or did not require intense sperm competition they still produced enzymes that operated best at cooler temperatures and had to keep their testes outside the body. This position is made less parsimonious by the fact that the kangaroo , a non-boreoeutherian mammal, has external testicles. The ancestors of kangaroos might, separately from boreotherian mammals, have also been subject to heavy sperm competition and thus developed external testes, however, kangaroo external testes are suggestive of a possible adaptive function for external testes in large animals.